


Silk

by nixcomix



Series: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words [5]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28587189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nixcomix/pseuds/nixcomix
Summary: When you need something you can never have, it's only a matter of time until you fall into despair.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Series: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099736
Comments: 42
Kudos: 89
Collections: My favorites





	Silk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedRoseWhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRoseWhite/gifts).



Artwork that inspired this piece is by Lilithsaur and can be found on their Tumblr page [here](https://lilithsaur.tumblr.com/post/171033207393/thanks). Please do not repost.

Moodboard by [Twitter: @AnOpenDoor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anopendoor/pseuds/anopendoor/works)  
_Thank you for that, it was so basic, otherwise!_

\--------------------------

He wonders what it feels like. Yearns for it, really.

Leathered fingers can only feel so much, but his imagination? Ohhh, _that_ can feel anything it wants to. It’s his imagination that sends tingles through him now, even though it’s just picturing the thought of something simple. Something easy. Something lovers must do all the time.

He imagines his gloved fingers running through her hair. Unlike reality – in his dreams, he’ll feel every bit of its texture. In his mind, it looks the same as it did in Snoke’s throne room – though perhaps longer. He doesn’t get to see her often and, when he does, it’s never with her hair down. Not when she’s awake, anyway.

In his imagination, her hair feels like silk. His bed is now enveloped in black satin so that, at night, he can caress it and continue his sinful thoughts. Perhaps they’re not sinful by a normal measure – but for a Darksider to be drawn so helplessly to a Lightsider?

Trespasses come in all shapes.

He’s lonely and aches for companionship. Superficial, even. Someone – _anyone_ that doesn’t have to fear him. Someone he doesn’t have to terrorize… but fate had another plan in mind, it seems.

He can’t take a partner, though he _has_ tried. One way or another, it stops before it even begins. The bond won’t let him do it, and he can’t break the bond – though he’s tried that, too.

So has she.

Once, they even tried together. They’d spoken to each other so carefully, treading so softly. Deciding how they could approach it; how they might succeed. Connection after connection after connection, they plotted. In those moments, he longed to pretend that her feelings of kindness towards him had returned. There was no reason for her to be kind to him, he was more of a monster now than he ever was… but that did nothing to take away the budding lie he wanted to tell himself.

They were close to breaking it. So _painfully_ close. But Kylo Ren had made a calculated error. He’d decided to look at her one last time. A sentimental moment, for a sentimental man.

And, when he did, she had looked back at him.

As soon as his eyes opened, her lids were lifting in sync. It was in that moment, when they locked gazes, that their grip on the Force trembled, fumbled, and released.

He was lying to himself again, he _knew_ he was, but he pretended that she looked relieved when it didn’t work. That perhaps she was _hoping_ it didn’t work. 

Was he hoping, too?

Yes. Absolutely, he was.

He’s older now. The Resistance was beaten to dust and the might of the First Order had risen. He’d never rebuilt his mask and shows his face proudly, now. His face that bears her mark.

It doesn’t matter where she is… only that she exists. With everything he’s taken from the Galaxy, he and his have not yet taken _her._ She mourns, though. Sometimes, when he’s falling asleep, he can feel her mourning. It’s at those times, more than any other, that he slips his fingers through his satin sheets – offering comfort to nothing in the hopes that it somehow reaches her.

He’s the reason she mourns; nearly every inch of her sorrow is now because of him.

But that’s his nature. Just as it’s hers to hold on to something that will never leave her alone. Something that needs her.

The air silences.

He blinks his eyes open and she lays beside him, tears streaming from her eyes, only a hair’s breadth away from his gloveless hands. He knows the rules by now, and so he pretends not to see her. He closes his eyes to her pitiful cries of loneliness.

But his hand never leaves her side.

In fact, it inches nearer. He can feel the heat coming from her as their energies slip across each other.

When she speaks his name in a quiet voice, his lids remain shut. _Just in case_ this is a dream. Rather than wake, he’d rather sit quietly and just feel her.

He hears her shift… and she shifts away. His eyebrows knit and he lets out a small, pathetic sound – followed by a hiss of air through his nose as he feels her hand slide over his. Callused. Rough. Exactly how he remembers them.

“Where are you?” he asks her for the millionth time.

“Where you’re not,” she returns, yet again.

He spreads his fingers and captures hers between them, lacing their hands together. He lets the rightness and the wrongness of her sentence hang in the air.

“Why are you always alone, Rey?”

Her voice hitches, ever so slightly.

Eyes still shuttered, Kylo purrs, “I’ve stopped them hunting you. You’re free.” He looks at her then, moonlight from somewhere else reflecting in her eyes. “Start over. _Be free.”_

Her lips tremble. “I can’t.”

He hums his understanding. She’s told him before that she can’t take another, either. There is no space clear in her heart for someone to give her the kind of happiness she wants.

Trapped, like animals. Both of them.

“Do you want to try to sever it again?” he asks, as mildly as he can, given his heart is in his throat.

Her hand grips him in a non-answer before letting go, sliding back over towards her like it’s been defeated. She turns her back to him, then.

And her loose, unruly night hair splays over his bedding.

His sinful hand creeps forward again and he gives in to his fantasy, running his fingers through the ends. Never touching her, not really, but her gasp says that she feels him anyway.

“Come to me,” he begs. “Please come. I won’t make you stay.”

She curls into herself, her back expanding and contracting with her breaths. “Come to _me,”_ she pleads in return, “But I’ll never let you go.”

His heart aches. _Oh,_ how it aches. The same dance – sometimes twirling to violent drums, sometimes swaying to choirs of angels. They both _want_ and _deny._ Push and pull. Hate and love.

No. Perhaps the last two aren’t correct. Replace both with variants of the word “Need.” A shameful need that you refuse to give in to but can’t let go of, either.

Her hair doesn’t feel like silk at all and it raises him out of his reverie. It doesn’t feel like his own unruly tresses, either. It’s only then that he notices how thin she is; frail looking. A thread of concern winds his way through him.

“You’re not eating. You haven’t eaten in a long time...”

There is a long, drawn out pause. 

“I’m waiting to die.”

And his heart breaks. With a swallow, he reaches his arm out and slips over her shoulder. The energies of their bodies touching always engulfs him in visions and emotions… but all the visions are gone. Only blackness remains.

Holding his breath and expecting the worst, he pulls her to his chest and rests his forehead against the crown of her messy hair. “I’ll go, too,” he whispers, and he feels her body go rigid against him. He presses deeper into her and holds her harder, as if to emphasize his point. “As soon as you go, I’ll follow you.”

Her voice is a whisper of desperation, “Will I be able to find you?”

He shakes his head against her. “No. I won’t make it to where you will.”

“Then why would you?”

He sighs and dares to rest his lips softly against her, close enough that she can feel him speak.

“Because you’re all I have.”

Her arms come up and embrace the one he’s twined around her. A beat of silence passes between them where nothing happens.

Hesitantly, “…I’ll… get myself something to eat... in the morning.”

He closes his eyes, kissing the crest of her hair as she sniffles, unseen. Again, and again, and again, he presses his lips to her hair – some kind of dam having broken within him.

“Thank you,” he whispers. More heatedly, as he moves his mouth to hover over her ear. _“Thank you.”_

She’s breathing erratically within his embrace now, but he doesn’t know whether it’s sorrow, relief or something else – still, he beseeches her to be safe. To be well. To be _his._

“Come to me,” he begs, once more. _“Please.”_

He hears one word fall from her lips.

“I…”

And then she’s gone.

A strand of her hair shimmers on the surface of his satin sheets.

He picks it up… and kisses it.

 _Soon,_ he eases himself. It’s only a matter of time. She’ll come to him, eventually – or he’ll go to her. It doesn’t matter which. 

He presses that one frail chestnut-colored line against his heart and prays to the ether.

_Please, let it be soon._

**Author's Note:**

> I. Can't. Stop. Writing. 
> 
> A friend of mine and I have "Fanart Fanfic" challenges. We take a piece of art and try to turn it into a little ficlet. The fanart piece that inspired me can be found here: https://lilithsaur.tumblr.com/post/171033207393/thanks 
> 
> Anyway, Red gave it to me tonight - so I wrote it tonight. No beta, I'm sorry! YEET


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